Many products are developed and marketed as multi-purpose and convenient in that one product replaces many products. Cleaning products provide an example where a single product is represented as replacing several specially designed products—one cleaning product replaces specially designed glass, surface and floor cleaners. Such a product is often a compromise in certain features or attributes, and the one-size-fits-all approach can and often does result in a product that is perhaps competent for all of the intended applications, but that does not excel in each application.
Other products are specially developed for single, specific applications. For these products, the consumer purchases the specialized product for the associated application. Even when a consumer is aware of the best combination of characteristics desired in a given product, there may be difficulty in finding the correct product for the intended application. This is particularly true where the product may be a member of a group of related products, wherein each member product of the group is designed with specific characteristics.
Guiding the consumer to the correct product may be especially difficult where the products otherwise appear to have similar characteristics, but in fact, they have different characteristics that allow them to perform better for one application over another application. Furthermore, because the products may be positioned together, as in a line-up or array of products, within a retail display. They may have similar appearance, packaging and trademarks and the like.
Because consumers can be hurried in the purchase decision, the consumer may end up with the wrong product and may have to return the product and purchase the correct product. Alternately, the consumer may use the incorrect product, and not realize the full benefit that would have otherwise been achievable with the correct product. Worse, the consumer may use the incorrect product and perceive the product to be poorly designed or made because it does not perform well, where in fact it is the wrong product for that consumer's application. Product suppliers work hard to maintain consumer satisfaction and loyalty, which can be compromised by one bad experience.
Products to be used by or for babies or small children such as diapers, wet wipes, bottles, formula, training pants and the like are typically referred to generically as “baby care” products. Such products are often grouped and sold together in a common location of a retail established such as the “baby” aisle of a grocery store. It is common for consumers shopping for such products to have young children or babies with them while shopping and such consumers often have very limited time and attention to devote to locating and selecting a particular product offering. Therefore, there is need to communicate clearly, quickly, and effectively the proper product characteristics to consumers and to maximize the likelihood that the most appropriate product or products is selected for a given use situation. As noted, this can be particularly important for products specialized to specific tasks within a line-up array or of product offerings.
Some brands of baby wipes products are currently sold in multiple versions creating an array of wipes products organized under that brand. Typically, these current arrays offer such variations as scented and unscented wipes, wipes including skin-care ingredients such as aloe and those without such additional ingredients, or wipes in differing packaging forms such as hard tubs and flexible film packaging. Additionally, some baby care products such as disposable diapers, are currently sold in a “stages of development” format. An example such a format is PAMPERS SWADDERS, PAMPERS CRUISERS, PAMPERS EASY UPS, and PAMPERS FEEL N' LEARN line up which has a common icon scheme with product features varying as appropriate for the baby's stage of development.
In the context of disposable diapers, the concept of product stage is primarily related to the size, movement, and fit characteristics needed by the products. Many consumers appreciate that young babies grow rapidly and have different movement characteristics, as well as physical size differences, as they grow. Therefore, consumers may appreciate and expect that diaper product design changes as appropriate to meet these changing fit, movement, leakage prevention, size, and other needs. An example of effective mechanisms to offer and communicate these and related stage appropriate performance characteristics (such as training features) is described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,763,944 and 6,648,864.
While other baby care products such as disposable wet wipes have been sold in various product versions, these have not typically been customized on the basis of stage of child development and products have not necessarily been tailored to meet the needs which are characteristic of a given stage of development. In contrast to such product offerings, the arrays of multi-stage cleaning wipes described herein are tailored to correspond to the cleaning needs characteristic of each stage of development.